STORM CLOUD IN FIJI.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 192, 15 August 1925, Page 11

STORM CLOUD IN FIJI.

WILL THERE BE NEW KENYA ?

INDIANS NURSE GRIEVANCES

J. T. MASSEY.)

Australasia cannot Ignore Fiji. Infinitely graver problems than the tariff on bananas may knock at our door in the future. 31r. Massey, Australian delegate to the Pacific Conference at Honoluln describes a significant Incident in the brief stay at Suva. Rising greenpeaked from the blue Pacific Viti Levu shows her white teeth where the spray foams on the coral reef. Such is the surpassing beauty of Fiji that the visitor to Suva finds it hard to believe that here there may arise a new Kenya and a fiercer surf.

The racial hatreds of the African outpost have already their young counterparts in the tropical island so near Australia.

Suva is so fair, so picturesque, so lazily happy under the sun, that the delegation to the Pacific Conference were surprised at the revelation of festering discontents, when they consented, to receive a deputation from the Indian

community. Yet it is not so hard to understand, perhaps, when one drives among the ramshackle Indian settlements, past the clean-lawn*d grass huts of the Fijians, and between the spreading Chinese gardens, and remembers that in all Suva there were less than 2000 whites in 1921 and fewer than 4000 in the whole colony. In ten years the increase was under five per cent.

There were 84,475 native Fijians in the same year, although their numbers showed a decrease of three per cent in the decade. Even though the Chinese total was but 1000, they showed a growth of 200 per cent in ten years.

Fifty years ago, the first Indians were brought "to the colony. To-day the total Indian population is roughly 05,000, about 45 per cent native born. The birth rate is 35.96 per thousand, as against 32.98 in India, and the death rate is only 6.50 as compared with 30.84 for India. Nearly 76 per cent are under 40 years of age. These figures are from the records of 1920.

Administrative problems may be imagined when the living conditions of the Fijians are contrasted with that of the Indians.

The Fijians retain their communist village system and have still their responsible" chiefs. So far the Government has not yielded to the agitation for the sale of native land to white settlers. The chocolate-brown laughing children, who drift happily with the years, are all avowedly Christians. The churches, however, can claim only about 1000 of the Indians, although the figures show a rice of 67 per cent in the decade.

On he other hand, community life as it exists in the village system of India, is entirely lacking in the Indian settlements of Fiji. This has meant lack of leadership and co-operation. The absence of caste, while in some respects a blessing, eliminates a strong cohesive factor, reacts against organised political efforts and reforms, and presents an additional element of difficulty to the Government.

Introduced under the regrettable indentured labour system, no consideration was given to any other factor than suitability as a labourer. Men were brought from various parts of India and settled together with their religion and racial prejudices still fresh.

To-day, there exist within a mile or two of each other the Hindu, the Sikh, the Mahommedan and the Christian. On one side of the road there is a Sikh temple, into which one may enter with unshod feet. Upon the other side red ribbons float from bamboo stuck into the ground alongside the rusty-tinned home of an Indian family; the fluttering things are intended to scare away the spirit of typhoid fever.

These various types and classes of Indians are growing up with practically no education, except for the few mission schools and the very limited efforts of the Indians themselves. The public schools are closed to Of the Fijians about 77 per , cent can read and write; of the Indians about 39 per cent of the males and less than three per cent of the females.

At times the racial feeling between the Indians and the whites and Fijians has been bitter. A few years ago the tide of Indian resentment rose against the Colonial Sugar Company, but to-day the Indian is prepared to work at times for the company at lower wages than he can get elsewhere, because-of other privileges.

Education, say the Indian leaders, would lessen all difficulties and help to remove the conviction that there is a conspiracy of reaction on the part of the authorities to keep the Indian a labourer and an inferior. Fortunately there is a brighter side to it all in the fact that a number of well-informed whites and Indians are sincerely desirous of working together' for the elimination of racial prejudices and the uplifting of Indian standards.

The Indian side was presented to the visitors by a deputation which waited on them in the local film theatre, owned by a Fijian-born Indian. Introduced toy the secretary of the Indian V.M.C.A., the deputation put its case through a young Indian solicitor and followed it by short speeches from representative men among the Indian community. Portion of the memorandum was as follows:—

"We admit that 65,000 Indians in Fiji are small when compared with the great nations represented at your conference. We desire to remind you, however, that we belong to the great Indian Empire, the population of which comprises three-fourths of the people of the British Empire, and that the treatment meted out to the Indians in Fiji is not only a part of a great Empire problem, but also a part of a great question of racial contacts to which you will be devoting attention. . . . We are whole heartedly loyal citizens of the British Empire, and desire to live on friendly and neighbourly terms with New Zealand and Australia."

Among the Indian requirements stressed was the necessity for medical help, especially where the women were out of reach of a European doctor. Admission to the superior wards of the hospital is denied, even at the rates paid by the whites.

Although the Government has now ! .agreed to a small' of aid in connection with private enterprise in the matter of education, and promised further assistance, these private schools i are not inspected, and the curriculum and ! results arc a'ike Jso ! dian, even if the child of a university ! graduate, may attend, a State school. It is said that there are 24,000 Indian children under 15 years, and 14,000 of school age, yet there exists for them a single Government lower primary school with 60 boys, costing £400 a year. Yet in 1923,' say the Indians, the Government spent £8472 on 425 white pupils; of this sum £2675 was collected i from European residents as an educa- > tion rate, and the balance came from revenue. The total for Indian education ! was £830, and for mixed Fijians and

Indians £2448. This was despite the fact that a residential tax of one pound levied on each male adult Indian brought in £16,000 in one year. The Indians desire a specialised educational department with a close association with the agricultural needs of the Indians, of whom a large percentage are agricultural labourers. Economically, it was argued, the Indians lived in semi-servitude. The current rate of pay for unskilled labour in the sugar districts was less than 2/ a day, and most of the foodstuffs had to be imported in a round-about way from India. A minority do well, but many of these are in the hands of unscrupulous money lenders. Politically, said "the deputation, the Indians were unrepresented on the Council of the colony. As a matter of common justice two-fifths of the colony being native-born subjects should be definitely represented. Also the principle of "taxation without representation was wrong. The one Indian formerly on the council was a Government nominee and resigned, it was explained, because of his helplessness and as a protest against the residential tax on Indians.

In land matters there is also great discontent. It was explained that Indian applications for more than five acres are discouraged.

Many racial discriminations were set forth at length, including the non-ad-mission of Indian civil servants to the Civil Servants' Association. Certain laws were condemned as discriminating against Indians, especially that relating to "marriage by custom."

The Indians do not desire a further influx from India, recognising that the native-born Indian could not compete with the lower standards of the newcomer, until the establishment of a minimum wage, workmen's compensation, and educational facilities.

There is a lack of shipping communication, only one vessel a year going direct to India, and this having limited accommodation.

These are the main points made by the deputation. Colour, race, culture and religion are all factors in the situation.

Naturally the Britisher's viewpoint differs on many points. In a recent speech, Sir Maynard Hedstrom, M.E.C. of Fiji, gave utterance to some aspects.

"Fiji is in many ways one of the most important groups of islands in the whole Pacific," he said. "It is only 1700 miles from Sydney, and whites with their families can live and thrive there.

"There is danger of it becoming Asiatic in settlement. Australia should take an interest in the matter because Fiji is in much the same position as Kenya, and the handful of Europeans feel strongly about any move to give the. Indians the franchise. It will not be a good thing to have an alien race in control of so important a centre when there is trouble.

"I would emphasise the importance of keeping those islands we already hold in the hands of our own people, because once you give the Indian population the communal vote these islands will, within a short time, become a place in which few Europeans would care to live."